Doors open at 5pm
Tickets go on sale at 7pm
I arrived at Portobello Road at 5.23pm, the weather typical, grey and spitting. I came earlier in a hope to procure tickets and arrived at around 10:30am'ish - the place was closed or just not yet open, so I wandered around Portobello to pass the time, mostly saw women's clothes and odd antiques.
The live music kicked off from 9pm, starting with the support acts, the first being a band of children, their name I cannot recall. The next act was a much better and more experienced band fronted by a charismatic black singer who reminded me of Lenny Kravitz, the next musician that came on stage was introduced by the announcer as a "multi-talented musician and film director, who by all means should/could not exist!" The announcer was of course referring to American History X director Tony Kaye who wore a black fedora and distinctive curve-rimmed glasses and for some reason reminded me of "Doc" from Back to the Future. Soon he was joined onstage by Mick Jones (of The Clash) to perform a duet with him and after the song Tony mentioned details of a short film he made that was due to be broadcast on the following Monday (I think) on Channel 4 (Mick Jones then corrected him, saying that it was in fact coming on E4).
After that a family band known as Kitty, Daisy & Lewis went on stage, their name I know because I talked to one of the members of the band before the show, her name was Daisy and she banged the drums! The band had a 50s chic to their visual presentation and their sound, especially in the family dynamic, which created a unique chemistry and harmony between the multi-talented siblings, who could be seen constantly swapping instruments between songs. One of the instruments borrowed by different members, was what appeared to be a vintage cherry sunburst Gibson (which at the time was being wielded by Lewis of the group). On their last song the band were joined by a Jamaican saxophonist, who when he played, made you feel at ease and wobbly kneed! After that followed a two-piece girl band, fronted by a lady called Gina Birch.
At this point I like much of the crowd was growing impatient that Carbon Silicon were still not yet onstage, so when yet another band came on, this time the turn of Taurus Trakker (I found the name of this band by reading it off the CD that the frontman handed out to at the end of their performance). Taurus Trakker also performed a number with Mick during the show, which worked really well! After Taurus Trakker, a band called the Rotten Hill Gang, who at first started playing folk and indie material, then during their performance, were joined by a rapper (who sounded a lot like Scroobius Pip) and a feisty female soul singer, which added a soul and hip-hop dimension to the sound BUT by the end of their set, started performing faithful covers of some old favourites, such as The Kinks "Waterloo Sunset" (coincidently enough, one of the band members actually bore a uncanny resemblance to a young Ray Davies) and Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues"!
The night was full of surprises I would learn and soon they started to reveal themselves one-by-one! The first of these surprises was a very new band (that as the announcer put it "just formed backstage") that featured the likes James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers (who had just comeback straight from the NME awards that happened a day before). The band sounded very good and had great stage presence, which is surprising considering they had only formed minutes ago. So soon had they been created that they hadn't even given themselves a name, so the announcer jokingly dubbed them "The Band With No Name". It was amazing how there was this electricity in the air as the clock hit midnight and the real magic started to happen, following this performance was not another band, O NO, but instead a self-proclaimed punk poet, one John Cooper Clarke who REALLY lit up the place with his creative and casual use of the word FUCK especially evident on
"Evidently Chicken Town".
At around quarter-to-1, Carbon Silicon hit the stage, first to announce the winners of the free raffle the was held on the night with the star prize being a complete box set of The Sopranos (a big theme of the Carbon Casino). I predictably did NOT win, but as they say, it's the taking part that counts and it was good to see some of the famous faces that came up to the stage to pick the winners of the raffle, starting from the 5th place prize all the way up to the 1st place, with such celebrities as the frontman of Hard-Fi Richard Archer.
Finally after each of the winners of the raffle were picked, Carbon Silicon began to play, opting to rely on the fate of the colourful spinning roulette wheel that dominated the stage, with each spin, deciding the next track that shall be played (which was spun by both members of the crowd and friends of Mick Jones such as Rhys Ifans, Sienna Miller and even the great grandson of Leon Tolstoy (who unbeknownst to everyone, was one of the photographers present and a close friend of the group!)
The crowd went wild when the wheel fell on "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" and after several tracks by Carbon Silicon, one more special surprise revealed itself, this time a BIG one! A man in furs that wore sunglasses and resembled a New York pimp came up onstage accompanied by a little lady with a big, soulful voice and as soon as they performed their distinctive song, it became obvious who they were - they were Alabama 3, better known as the band that performed the theme music for the hit US TV series The Sopranos and were ACTUALLY playing it here and now for all the lucky people present! As Alabama 3 played their song "Woke Up This Morning", all the previous acts that performed earlier squeezed onto the small stage to sing the words too!
As it looked like the night was coming to an end, the people called for an encore and after a patient wait, the lights came back on! Carbon Silicon came on for the final time that night to play their track "W.D.M.F" (Why Do Men Fight) spun by the descendent of Tolstoy. Before Carbon Silicon left the stage, Mick Jones had an important message to impart to everyone there: "People are ready to change the world, but not willing to change themselves", Mick revealing afterwards it was a quote by Leon Tolstoy.
As I walked over to collect my things, I saw this petite blond girl in a trilby hat from behind the curtain, with a group of musicians who were busy carrying out their equipment - it was Sienna Miller! As tempted as I was to take a photograph of her, just that very moment I witnessed a photographer, a professional, getting chastised for attempting just that, by one of Sienna's girlfriends - so I forgot about the idea. I realized at that moment, that I was quite parched and a little tired, so I went over to the bar area to get some vitamin C in the form of J2O to wake me up, except the main bar was closed BUT located directly left of that and near the stage, was an open bar! As there was only 1 bar woman working at that time in the morning, naturally there was a going to be a swarm of orders and a slow-moving, dispersed queue.
After much waiting, I savoured my drink, it instantly cooling and energizing me and just as I was about to leave, to my surprise in walked Sienna Miller making her way to the exact same bar area that I was located at! So I grabbed hold of the opportunity/chance to talk to her and made small talk of the events that had just unfolded on stage! Maybe it was me, or maybe it was the subject matter but Sienna looked dumbfound by my words (probably because she was too drunk to notice the intricacy of saying one word followed by yet another, known as a sentence) but for some reason "shrink" came into the conversation and she likened me to, in her own words, Jeremy Kyle (of all the people!) Sienna was clearly more focused on getting her Gin & Tonic whilst I discovered that I was in fact talking to a brick wall, so I called it a day!
On the way out, I walked passed wasted musicians, the sober ones loaded the band's instruments onto the tour van and the "pissed" ones, like their state, relieved themselves on the side of brick wall.
Best £10 I've EVER spent!
Carbon Casino "Lucky 7" - Mick Jones & Tony Kaye
Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - Mean Son of a Gun
"The Band With No Name" feat James Dean Bradfield
John Cooper Clarke - Evidently Chickentown
Alabama 3 - Woke Up This Morning (The Sopranos theme)